


i am singing now as rome burns (mash your mouth against me)

by bellemon



Category: Grishaverse - Fandom, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angry Sex, Canon Divergent, Choking, EVERYTHING IS CONSENSUAL TRUST ME, F/M, Hate Sex, Smut, aleksander "don't you even THINK about blowing me before i blow you" morozova, aleksander accepts her weird things, alina "i'm so not into this BUT DONT STOP" starkov, alina discovers she's into weird things, angry cunnilingus, if you take out all the times he says her name you've really just cut half the word count, lmao is that a thing, set after the attack on the spinning wheel, they say no a lot but not in a non-con way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 21:59:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellemon/pseuds/bellemon
Summary: “Don’t say her name. You killed her,” he hisses, fingers closing around her neck, even as his thumb caresses the curve of her throat, even as his fingers intertwine with the fall of hair that lies at her nape. “She died for you.”“She died because of you,” Alina snarls, even as she leans into his touch, even as she hates herself for it. “We both killed her.”He gives a growl of rage and surges toward her. For a moment, the rage in Alina’s heart gives way to fear, to relief, to desire.He’s going to kill me.But then he is kissing her, lips crashing against hers like flint on steel, and isn’t that the same thing?---- Alina does not resist the pull of their tether. The Darkling welcomes her in his own way.(Or, Alina and The Darkling are just two people hiding their Thirst through power plays)





	i am singing now as rome burns (mash your mouth against me)

**Author's Note:**

> i hope the darkling wasn't too out of character. this kind of feels a little rough but i wanted to post it before i chickened out so here ya are.

Alina leaves her body on the forest floor, tears still drying on her cheeks, and gives herself up to the tether anchoring her to the Darkling. Perhaps it is because she wants to confront him. To demand Nikolai be returned to her, or see if he will give her anything to work with, anyway of knowing how she can get him back herself. Or perhaps it is something else, a desire to not be lonely. A desire to see her enemy as crushed and broken as she is.

He is lying down when she arrives, his shirt cast off, one arm slung over his eyes. Even like this, broken and grieving, he is stunning. She hates him for it. The room around him is blurry, out of focus as usual, but she’d recognize it anywhere.

It is, after all, hers.

She lingers by her bed for a moment, feeling a shock at this violation. All the resolve that she carried through the connection withers, and she has no idea what to say.

“What do you want, Alina?” he asks. Weariness weighs down his voice. Rage keeps it steady.

 _To hurt you. To see your pain. To hear you lose control._ Her voice comes back to her all at once, her resolve blooming in her chest. “I want him back. Give him back to me.”

“I should have known,” he snarls. “Not even a word about my mother, after everything she did for you.”

Alina has the grace to blush, but quickly replaces her shame with anger. “I did not force Baghra off that cliff, Darkling. That was all you.”

It happens in a matter of seconds. He lashes out - not with the cut, but with his hands. The room comes into focus as he drags her down and rolls onto her, holding her between his thighs. She does not struggle. He will not hurt her, cannot hurt her. Not when she is like this, only a scrap of a real thing. His grip is bruising, but her skin will be unmarred when she returns to her body. She almost hates that, too.

“ _Don’t_ say her name. You killed her,” he hisses, fingers closing around her neck, even as his thumb caresses the curve of her throat, even as his fingers intertwine with the fall of hair that lies at her nape. “She died for you.”

“She died _because_ of you,” Alina snarls, even as she leans into his touch, even as she hates herself for it. “We both killed her.”

He gives a growl of rage and surges toward her. For a moment, the rage in Alina’s heart gives way to fear, to relief, to desire. _He’s going to kill me._

But then he is kissing her, lips crashing against hers like flint on steel, and it isn’t that the same thing?

Briefly, it is a whirlwind, threatening to sweep her away. His teeth are a brutal thing, slicing into her lip, a threat and a challenge and a weapon all at once.

Alina refuses to go down without a fight, even if the odds are stacked against her. She opens her mouth.

He groans, quiet but strong. She’d blush over her inexperience in kissing, if this were a real kiss. But it isn’t, not really. She doesn’t need grace for this, all she needs is rage, loathing, and desperation, all of which she has in spades after everything that has happened today.

Hands tug at her _kefta,_ and she lets it tear away from her body, fluttering away as he tosses the scraps aside. It isn’t real, anyway, and the one that her body truly wears is left untouched. His hands rove her naked body, rubbing over her breasts, digging into her skin. Pained gasps escape her, but she does not push him away. This is the kind of hurt that she welcomes, the kind of hurt that keeps her thinking of Nikolai calling her name one last time, of Baghra diving over the edge. The hard press of his arousal against her stomach would have made her blush a year ago, but now it only serves her a fresh thrill of satisfaction, and perhaps, a little arousal of her own.

She wants to see him come apart. She wants to be the one to do it.

She grabs his shoulder, and it must catch him off guard, because he gives no struggle as she rolls on top of him. Eyes dark with want and shock meet hers as she draws away to begin kissing along the edge of his jaw. She presses her lips to every scar, every imperfection, thrilling in the way his breath labors, the way his fingers press into her hair.

For some reason, he does not let her go past his muscled chest, clamping his hands over hers.

“Don’t,” the Darkling warns.

“Don’t what?” Even to her, her voice sounds breathy. “Isn’t this what you want? Me, crouched between your legs?”

His stormy eyes narrow, unreadable. “You will see what I want when I take it from you, Alina Starkov.”

She shudders at the way he says her name, full of hatred and want and anger. Before she can say a thing, he tugs her so that their lips meet once more. It isn’t even that much of a surprise when he rolls her back over, back the way they came. She bites down on his tongue in response, out of spite more than anything, but he doesn’t even flinch. Does she imagine the slight moan that rumbles in his throat?

She sucks on his tongue, trying to encourage him to make that noise again, but he is drawing away, kissing down her neck feverishly, biting every time she tries to wrestle her hands from his grip. The sensation of his harsh nips is indescribable; pain and pleasure and heat pulse under her skin. _What do you want, Alina?_ He had asked, and she certainly hadn’t wanted _this,_ hadn’t even known for sure what she wanted. But now it has become infinitely clear to her - she wants to forget. And the Darkling is her solution.

So she struggles against him, luxuriating in every sharp jab of his teeth, tilting her head back for more. She expects him to stop at her collarbone, but he keeps working his way down, stops at her breasts for only a second before drifting toward her navel. The bed shifts under his weight as he slowly scooches backwards, mapping kisses over the plane of her skin, each one bringing her a jolt of heat. Confusion worms its way into Alina’s voice, even as she writhes from the sensation of it.

“What are you doing?”

He does not reply, just continues to lay skin tingling kisses along the line of her hip bone. She stares at him, breath shaking with uncertainty, as he grows closer to her cunt. “No wonder you came to me,” he murmurs, and she isn’t very sure what he means. His lips are at the inside of her thigh and it’s taking everything in her not to gasp too much.

“Keep _still,_ ” he urges, sucking at her skin in a way that makes her squirm harder, tingles shooting up her spine. He lets go of her right hand, leaving it lying awkwardly by her side, and latches onto her thigh instead, keeping it steady as he sucks at it. Alina cannot help the little sound she makes, cannot help the way her blood rushes.  

“What are you doing?" Alina repeats, unable to keep the breathlessness from her voice. Never has she imagined it like this; before, Mal and his friends would laugh over innuendos of women on their knees, but never has she thought about the roles reversed.

"What I do best," he replies finally, lips rasping against the inside of her thigh. "Making you scream."

And then he shifts, and her hips buck violently to meet the hot press of his mouth against her sweet spot. The sharp gasp she sucks in threatens to choke her.

He pushes her back down, fingers splaying over her hip bone. "So eager," he teases, and the pressure of his breath right there is enough to make her tremble. "Just like the night of our demonstration."

"The night I left you for Mal," she grits out, still sane enough to be bitter, to be defiant, even as his lips brush at her and she holds herself back from thrusting forward again.

He gives a little growl and scrapes his teeth against her swollen clit, making her suck in a breath. Pain or pleasure, she isn't sure, but the intensity of it is definite. As is her desire for him to do it again.

"Not his name. Not here," he commands, before flicking his tongue out against her. Alina chokes down a moan. "Your tracker and your corrupted prince have no place here.”

"That isn't yours to decide."

"It is when I'm the one making you moan." As if she asked him to. As if he isn't the one between her legs. "Will you begrudge me that? This small thing?"

"Make me moan, make me scream, make me your peninsula, I don't care," Alina replies. "I will begrudge you every small thing."

"Then what is this? You are not denying me this."

"You asked me what I want. Well, here it is. I want to forget, and you will make me do it.”

“Forget what?”

“All of it.”

“Even me?” There’s an edge to his voice.

“Especially you.”

"No," he refuses, and then his tongue thrusts into her and there is nothing left to say, no way she can say it as she tries to stifle the gasps that struggle up her throat.

She's lying on a forest floor, abandoned and broken, but at the same time she is here, in this moment, with the Darkling's tongue inside her. It feels wrong. It feels like coming home.

"Moan, Alina. Give me your gasps, tell my name," he pulls his tongue back and whispers against her. His other hand still grasps hers, his thumb circling her wrist bone. It is too gentle. She yanks her hand away, and she thinks he sees a flash of guilt as he lets her.

"No," she breathes out, her hands sliding into the silk of his hair, nagging him to slip his tongue back in. A refusal for a refusal. It is all take, no give, all pull, no push. There is no surrender, no giving up ground, not for anything. _I will give you nothing. What you want, you must take._

Except she does moan, when his fingers leave her hipbone to work on her clit. And he does make her forget, as he licks and kisses and fucks her with his tongue. Heat unfurls in her stomach, makes her gasp and whimper and dig her heels into the mattress, her nails into his scalp.

She forgets the Darkling, and instead remembers Aleksander.  His name spills out of her like blood from a vein, unstoppable and relentless, as she reaches her climax, as the heat spreads everywhere. Radiant as light, ugly as shadows, her pleasure beats through her body like a war. "Aleksander,” she moans, “Aleksander. Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

She can barely feel the hitch of his breath against her as he hears her pant his name, but it’s there, and she's glad that even as she writhes and moans and gasps, she has not completely lost anything. He does not draw back, not until her thighs have released his ears and her fingers are tugging roughly at his hair. When he does, his mouth is wet, and she wonders if anyone could walk in and see the way his lips glisten. He grabs her hand and turns his head to push his open mouth against the pulse of her wrist. It could be a kiss, a tender caress between lovers, if not for his teeth digging into the soft skin. Alina's gasp turns quickly to a growl, and she is tugging him up against her harshly, nails digging into his scalp. Her lips slams down on his, and they are kissing but it's more like fighting: all teeth as he bites her lip, all nails as she scratches gouges into his scalp and back. She wonders if they will stay. After all, she is the one who has left her body behind. He is the one who is real.

"Sankta Alina," he drawls against her jaw as he pulls away to kiss and nip at her throat. And it could be sarcastic but there's reverence there, too. _Save me, take it away, take away the pain, the wanting._ "Sankta Alina. How holy you are, how pure. Even your moans taste like salvation..”

He is lodged between her legs and she can feel his hardness resting at her navel, insistent and unyielding. It is nothing like salvation. It is everything she needs.

"So eager," she quotes him, and then she is rolling him over again. His back hits the feathered mattress with a sound too gentle for their union.

She pulls back and reaches down to undo his pants, but he stops her, hands closing over hers. A frown tilts his mouth, his full, still wet mouth, and it’s so hard not to stare."I will be on top.”

"Then I will return to Mal.” Her eyes dart to his, daring him to call her bluff. "And you can take care of yourself, alone."

A flash of fear, of anguish. She knows that word hurts him in a way nothing else can. Baghra is dead and they are the only ones left, light and dark, chaos and grace. She is giving him an ultimatum, but in truth there is no choice. He curls his lip, and its as good to her as surrender, so she leans down to kiss his snarling mouth. This time, he doesn't stop her as she tears at his laces, pulls him free.

This isn't giving, this is taking, and she will not begrudge herself the small glimmer of satisfaction, even though the only knowledge of doing _this_ she has to go on are Zoya's innuendos and Genya's hushed gossip. No turning back now.

His hips twitch a little when her fingers brush feather light over his wet tip and she grabs him around the base. He has more control then she did, years of experience training him to hold himself back. But she can see it in his eyes, in the dilation of his pupils. He wants her to hurry up.

She does not steel herself, does not stop to admire or blush over his exposed member, even as she feels her stomach flutter with uncertainty. Perhaps he can sense it in her, because his hands fall to her hips and press into them, almost leading her. An apt pupil, an eager teacher.

And then she is guiding him into her, enveloping him with a hitch of breath, and his fingers tighten over her skin. He fills her up, makes her whole, even as he tears her apart. She thought it wouldn't hurt, but it does, and she has to stifle a gasp.

"It will fade, Alina. It isn’t real. Just keep going," he says softly, almost tenderly. Almost. But she can hear it in his voice - hunger. Impatience. And also, a sort of smugness. She wishes she weren’t a virgin, wishes that she is as experienced as him, but quickly pushes it down. There is no time for insecurity; she will make up for her inexperience by making _him_ feel like he is the blushing maid. Her hands splay over his chest and she rocks into him, steady and tantalizing. His nails dig into her skin.

" _Faster_.”

"No," she refuses, her hands sliding up to rest around his throat. His eyes grow darker, somehow, and she lets her grip tighten.

"You cannot kill me," he rasps. She is not sure who he is trying to convince.

"I know."

It is enthralling, the sight of him beneath her, the feel of his Adam's apple rocking beneath her fingers as he swallows. Is it fear in his eyes? Insecurity? Shame?

No. She knows he has no capacity for that. And yet...it is something. Something she has never seen on him. Something she likes.

His hands drift from her waist, up to cup her breasts. Thumbs brush over her nipples, pressing them gently, and she feels a flutter low in her belly, like a gentle breeze. Then a full-fledged gust when his nails clamp over her skin, digging into her breasts.

Desire coils deep in her stomach, and she lets out a moan. The resulting smirk that curls his mouth gives her a jolt of frustration. It is quickly tempered by resolve. He has drawn first blood, but she will break that devious look in his eye by the time she is done with him.

She rocks against him, picking up speed with ungraceful jolts. His fingers tighten. Hers do too, and - there, the hitch in his breath as he fights for air. It is all illusion. She is not even real. But the feeling of her fingers crushing his windpipe must seem so, and his struggle for air as well. The flush in his cheeks is not from pleasure, but from pain. From struggle. Still, he does not push her away. He pulls her down. She gives a little cry of surprise, and he catches it in his mouth. Her fingers go slack, but she does not dare to slow her pace or let go completely. He is meeting her now, all control lost as he thrusts his hips in an unsteady tandem with hers.

"Faster, Alina. More."

"Beg me," she commands against his lips, though it is almost a plea in itself. The coil in her stomach is tightening; she wants to know how it will feel to unravel once again. She _wants_ to go faster.

"No."

She pulls her face away. Her fingers tighten around his neck, her thumb digging into the slant of his Adam's apple.

"Beg me."

"No," he wheezes out.

She stops her movements completely, even though the loss of friction has her nearly crying with frustration.

"Beg me," she commands, one final time. His face is beginning to redden under her touch, even though she knows he is only reacting to the illusion of her.

He remains silent, defiant, his eyes black with desire and pride both. _I am tired of your games, Alina._

 _Then find someone else to play with_ , she thinks, annoyance and rage twisting a knife in her heart.

"Have it your way," she hisses out, releasing his throat and beginning to shift away. His hands are grasping at her wrists before she can even slide him out of her.

"No," he growls. He tugs her down, lips rushing to meet hers, kissing her so hard it hurts, all teeth and tongue. She finds herself panting as he thrusts his hips up, bucking into her, desperate for her friction. He groans as she does not meet his pace, as she slows down.

She will not go faster. Saints do not bow, they answer prayers on their own terms. She is not leaving, but she is not giving in either. Take, take, take.

"Alina," he groans. His breaths are erratic, his skin hot and flushed beneath hers. He drags her hands up and places them over his neck. Like a collar.  "Sun Queen, my darling, my balance."

She wants to go faster. She wants to feel herself unravel. She wants him to unravel.

"It isn't real," she pants, spreading her hands over his neck, hands pale as stag antlers. "Beg me."

She almost doesn't hear it, so engrossed in the sound of his struggle to breath, of his low moans. "Please, Alina. Sankta Alina. Please, go faster."

She does.

All the teasing and frustration and pent up desire coils in her stomach, tightening and tightening and tightening. Her pants come faster, her breathing more erratic. “Alina,” he whispers, and she has heard him say her name so many times, in so many ways, but there is something different about it now. Something different about hearing it like this, with her hands squeezing his neck and his breath coming in labored pants. He is looking at her like she is something new, something he has never seen before.

It’s all she needs.

She comes apart, clenching around him. Heat pulses through her, poisons her veins. It is a venom she would gladly take again.

"My name," he pants out, pulling her so she rests against him, mouth falling to the crook of her neck. "Say it, Alina."

 _Beg me_ , she might have said, if she wasn't in the throes of her second orgasm tonight. If her mind wasn’t lost to the pleasure boiling in her blood. Instead, she obeys, " _Aleksander_."

His teeth sink into her skin as he comes, clamping over her pulse point, digging into her bloodstream. She can feel her collarbone vibrating as he releases a sound - half growl, half groan. Animalistic. Monstrous. Beautiful.

 _Hers_.

She guides him through it, moving against him, hissing his name into his ear.

When he's finished, they remain like that for a moment. A gross parody of a lover's embrace. And then she lifts herself off his length with a quiet, wet noise. Settling at the edge of the bed, her legs over the side, she begins to wonder if this counts as her first time. She begins to wonder what will be left of her, once she is gone. She can feel his eyes on her back, roving over her shoulder blades. Maybe he is wondering about that, too.

Alina reaches up to grope at her neck, is unsurprised to find it unmarked by his teeth. She cannot be marked, not like this.

"Pity," says the Darkling. "I should have liked to see it."

Alina inclines her head to find him staring at her, eyes hooded. "You have already left your mark on me, Darkling."

"How easily you return to that name. Does it make it easier, Alina Starkov? To think that Aleksander made you come, instead of the Darkling who took your precious prince from you?" he snaps. “It almost saddens me to have to inform you that we are the same person.”

 _The Darkling has given me nothing. Aleksander gave me his name._ “Oh, and I suppose that’s why you begged me to say _Aleksander_? So that I would think of you as both the monster and the man?” she retorts, all sharp edges. She is a mouse no longer; she responds with the bite of a wolf.

“Such an ill temper for a woman revered as a saint,” he says, and the chuckle in his voice is jarring. How can he change from anger to amusement so quickly? He reaches up, brushes her hair off her shoulder, where the scar of his _nichove’ya’s_ bite should be. It is bare, too. Smooth. Untainted. The thought of that scar brings her back to reality. "Do you want to know what I see when you come to me like this?"

"No," she tells him. _I should be getting back now._ Shame burns somewhere deep in her stomach, and she finds herself itching to escape this room, to forget this ever happened. But that would mean returning to that cold forest floor. And it is so warm here, with the Darkling's fingers resting on her shoulder, playing with her hair.

He shifts, pulling himself upright, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. Relief pulses through her.

"Before, your hair was brown. Rich. Like chocolate. I saw you the way you were the night you ran away from me." He suddenly has her full attention, but she does not say a word. He continues. "You were so strong, then. Strong, but still a mouse. No one would have believed the little girl with the brown hair could glow as harshly as you. But I did. I believed in you. I believed in what you could give me, if you wore the antlers." His hands drift over her skin, barely touching, nails gliding over her spine. Going nowhere. Alina shivers.

"Believed, past tense."

"Yes, past tense. I don't believe in what you can _give_ me anymore, Alina Starkov. I believe only in what I can take from you," his words are harsh, but his hands are gentle, feather light. "And now there is no one in this world who would ever look at you and deny your ability to call the sun. Your hair is so white. You look like light, now. So cold, so pure, so..."

"Saintly?" she prompts, voice edged with sarcasm.

His hand curls into the hair at the nape of her neck. "Intangible. Blinding. _Mine_." And then he is yanking her down, backwards, so she falls into his lap. His fingers tighten in her hair and she gasps as he roughly tilts her head up to face him. Back in her body in a faraway forest, her fists clench. She nearly returns, nearly wrestles out of the grip of their connection. For a moment, she flickers out of existence.

But then she sees the desperation in his eyes, feels his fingers tighten as he tries to hold onto the wisps of her.

"Stay," he says. It is a plea and a command. "Don't slip away from me tonight, _moya sol tsaritsa_ , _moya sankta_. You did this to me. Take it away."

"We did this to each other," she murmurs, leaning into the rough pull of his hand.

"Then let me take it away, too."

 _No_. It almost comes out. She wrestles herself from his grip, wondering if he will have wisps of white hair on his fingers when she is gone. Wondering if there will be anything left behind. Disappointment clouds his face, makes his jaw tick, is quickly shuttered away before she can say a word.

Mal will find her body, soon. He will call her back from her bed, the Darkling's bed. She knows this.

But until then...she is too tired to return, where she will have dutiful Mal to tend her but leave her lonely in her sleep. Instead, she will lie by the man who won't leave her be, no matter what he thinks she needs.

Tentatively, she shifts positions to lie down. Not daring to touch him, to face him. That would be giving too much. She misses the flicker of surprise in his eyes, the relieved flutter of his lashes.

But she doesn’t miss it when he shifts behind her, his hand finding the expanse of her waist. And as Aleksander Morozova tucks his nose into her hair, she doesn't even flinch away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> funny story: i was writing this in school when one of my favorite teachers passed by and i was on the choking bit and she didn't look or see anything but i have never felt so much Shame.


End file.
